Multiply a layer’s channels by a specified amount. It’s ridiculously simple, but invaluable when dealing with 3D tracking camera data, where scaling the global animation can really help fix After Effects insistence on importing meters as pixels.

While stop motion can be a fantastic medium, the process is too slow for many productions. Even for simple elements, like wrinkled paper, the time it takes to do things physically is often untenable; for the Microsoft PowerPivot online advertising campaign, Vectorform required lightening quick turnaround on visual elements and animation revisions, often on an hour by hour basis. This is how the paper cutout effects were designed and generated dynamically using Adobe After Effects.

After Effects script to push render queue completion notifications to an iPhone or iPod Touch, as well as speaking the alert audibly on your computer. Requires the Prowl app to actually interface with the push service (available from the iTunes App Store).

Using freely available tools, lipsyncing a character in Adobe After Effects doesn’t have to be a pain. Papagayo is an open source app for breaking a script down into phonemes and syncing the pieces to an audio track, while LipSync is an OS X dashboard widget that helps translate the resulting moho switch files into After Effects keyframes.

Tracking in After Effects can often result in data too jittery to be of any use. If you’re able to get multiple tracks, however, it’s possible to average them into a single, smoother, track. Even if the single tracks are decent, averaging will help increase the accuracy of the data.